Do you only rely on the spell check feature when writing. You do realize that even if the words are spelled right they may be the wrong words used. Always proof read your work. Read it out loud to yourself and just see how it sounds. If it sounds a little goofy take a closer look at what you have written. Then after you do your proof reading, give it to someone else to read.

Let’s have a little fun now…

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up – and goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five!

Quoted by Vivian Cook and Melvin Bragg 2004,
by Richard Krogh, in D Bolinger & D A Sears, Aspects of Language, 1981,
and in Spelling Progress Bulletin March 1961, Brush up on your English.

3 Responses to “Do You Only Use Your Spell Check?”

You’re right about the traps in writing for those who rely on a spell checker and don’t additionally proof their work.

As highlighted so well in your poem, some of the most common errors are words that sound thesame and are spelled differently.

A couple of common examples are there and their. Many people get them wrong through not knowing the difference – and of course a spell checker will not rule out a correctly spelled word! And reading out loud often can be inefficient at catching these types of mistakes – because not only do they sound the same, but our eye tends to flick over the familiar.

I think your advice about passing work to a friend to read is very sensible.

Hi Dennis
I used to be a proof reader, and keep previewing when I am writing. Spell checking isn’t good enough.
On and one, miss the ‘e’ off and it makes nonsense of a sentence. Here and hear, were and wear, the list is endless.
Love the poem.
dee

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